Parking aid devices for vehicles, in particular motor vehicles, are known in principle from the prior art. Furthermore, lane change assistance systems and lane keeping assistance systems are known. For example, a motor vehicle comprising a lane changing assistance system or a lane keeping assistance system, and also a parking aid system, is described in document EP 2 028 072 B1. In this case, upon operation of the parking aid system during travel, an acquisition region is acquired with the aid of ultrasonic sensors, which are designed for a specific acquisition region, and provided to the mentioned assistance systems.
However, the previously known parking aid systems only permit parking on a presently traveled lane. Moreover, only available parking spaces or parking areas adjoining the presently traveled lane are considered, i.e., for example, in a case of right hand driving, only parking spaces adjoining a right lane.
The extent of autonomy of parking aid systems continuously rises. The coming generation of parking aid systems is to be capable of controlling the vehicle completely, autonomously during an entire parking maneuver, for example, including acceleration, braking, gear shifting, and steering. In this context, it is desirable if parking aid systems are capable of also assuming scouting of surroundings for suitable parking spaces.
A parking aid system typically starts with an observation phase and/or a phase of scouting the surroundings. During this phase, the vehicle either travels autonomously or controlled by the driver at a low velocity, for example, in a range of 10 km/h, wherein sensors that find a suitable parking area and/or a suitable parking space are activated on a side of the vehicle on which the vehicle is to be parked. In the case of right-hand traffic, sensors are typically activated on a right side of the vehicle in this case. If no parking space has been found, the system ends the parking aid function after a specific duration or a specific covered travel distance.
However, situations occur in which no parking space was found along the presently traveled lane, but parking spaces are possibly available on an oncoming lane. Previously known automated parking strategies and parking aid systems are not capable of offering these parking spaces to a user.